Oooo! I just received an email from a Lone Writer colleague telling me that a sentence I posted at the end of a response to someone on a discussion list is going into his quotes file. Ah, the fame! The quote?
Beds of roses have thorns when you look closely.
Thanks to Steph…
1. Heard a kookaburra in person [yes, and seen plenty too]
2. Slept under the stars [yes]
3. Seen a koala [yes]
4. Visited Melbourne [yes]
5. Watched a summer thunderstorm [yes]
6. Worn a pair of thongs [wearing thongs right now!]
7. Been to Uluru (Ayers Rock) [yes, twice]
8. Visited Cape York [does the Daintree and Cape Tribulation count?]
9. Held a snake [yes]
10. Sang along with Khe San [absolutely]
11. Drank VB [no – I never drink beer of any description]
12. Visited Sydney [yes]
13. Have seen a shark [yes]
14. Have used Aussie slang naturally in a conversation [fair dinkum! what sort of question is that? ;-)]
15. Had an actual conversation with an indigenous Australian (aboriginal) [yes]
16. Eaten hot chips from the bag at the beach [yep; yum]
17. Walked/climbed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge [does driving over it count?]
18. Used an outside dunny, and checked under the seat before sitting down [yep – there was a slimy frog on it the one time I didn’t check the top of the seat one night when I was a kid!]
19. Seen Chloe in Young & Jackson’s [no, but I know what/who Chloe and Young & Jackson’s are — does that count?]
20. Slept on an overnight train or bus [yes, bus]
21. Been to Sydney’s Mardi Gras [no]
22. Have gone bush-bashing [yep, when I lived up north]
23. Taken a sickie [not as far as I can recall]
24. Been to see a game of Aussie Rules football [plenty since my nephew started playing AFL!]
25. Have seen wild camels [yep, and have even eaten camel!]
26. Gone skinny dipping [yes, though it was MANY years ago]
27. Had a Tim Tam Slam [absolutely]
28. Ridden in a tram in Melbourne [yes]
29. Been at an ANZAC day Dawn Service [no]
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset [yes]
31. Held a wombat [no]
32. Been on a roadtrip of 800km or more [often]
33. Seen the Great Australian Bight in person [yes]
34. Had a really bad sunburn [too right — sun/heat stroke too…]
35. Visited an aboriginal community [yes]
36. Seen a redback spider [many]
37. Have watched Paul Hogan [in ads, on TV and in films only]
38. Seen Blue Poles in person [no]
39. Wandered barefoot in the bush/outback [are you crazy? no way!]
40. Eaten Vegemite [I’ve eaten more kilograms of Vegemite in my lifetime than I’d care to count…]
41. Thrown a boomerang [tried in vain]
42. Seen the Kimberleys [yes — well, Kununurra, Wyndham, Emma Gorge – does that count?]
43. Given a hitch-hiker a lift [yes, once, years ago…]
44. Been to Perth [lived there for ~30 years!]
45. Have tried Lemon, Lime and Bitters [plenty]
46. Tried playing a didgeridoo [no]
47. Seen dinosaur footprints [yes, in Broome]
48. Eaten Tim Tams [of course!]
49. Been to Darwin [yes, for work]
50. Touched a kangaroo [yes, and I had a pet euro for a time]
51. Visited the Great Barrier Reef [yes and swam with the fishies]
52. Listened to Kevin Bloody Wilson [on tape and radio only]
53. Killed a Cane Toad [no]
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre [yes; ah, memories…]
55. Have read and own books by Australian authors [yes]
56. Visited Adelaide [yes]
57. Know the story behind “Eternity” [what’s “Eternity”?? guess the answer to that one is ‘no’]
58. Been camping [yes]
59. Visited Brisbane [yes, mostly for work]
60. Been in an outback pub [yes]
61. Know what the term “Waltzing Matilda” actually means [yes]
62. Gone whale watching [yes]
63. Listened to Slim Dusty [yes]
64. Own five or more Australian movies or TV series [don’t own ANY movies or TV series, Australian or otherwise]
65. Sang along to Down Under [often!]
66. Have stopped specifically to look at an historic marker by the side of the road [no]
67. Eaten a 4’n’20 pie [yes, and have even had a pie at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels in Woolloomooloo]
68. Surfed at Bondi [I’ve walked along the beach — does that count?]
69. Watched the cricket on Boxing Day [on TV only]
70. Visited Hobart [no, but I went to Launceston for 24 hours once to watch an AFL game (see #24) — does that count?]
71. Eaten kangaroo [yes and often, and very nice it is too]
72. Seen a quokka [yes]
73. Visited Canberra [yes]
74. Visited rainforests [yes]
75. Used a Victa lawnmower [yes, years ago]
76. Travelled on a tram in Adelaide [not that I can remember]
77. Watch canefields burning [I’ve watched them growing, but not burning]
78. Used a Hills hoist [every week…]
79. Visited the Olgas [yes]
80. Used native Australian plants in cooking [no, though I’ve eaten dishes with them in]
81. Visited the snow [yes]
82. Chosen a side in Holden v Ford [no, and I don’t care]
83. Visited the desert [yes]
84. Been water skiing [tried once; failed miserably]
85. Read The Phantom [when I was a kid!]
86. Visited Parliament House [yes]
87. Gone spotlighting or pig-shooting [yes, but it was kangaroo and wild goat shooting]
88. Crossed the Nullarbor [yes, road and air]
89. Avoided swimming in areas because of crocodiles [yes]
90. Listened to AC/DC [absolutely, and as loud as possible!]
91. Called someone a dag [yep]
92. Voted in a Federal Election [yes — even though there have been times the fine for not voting looks more attractive]
93. Have been swimming and stayed between the flags [yes]
94. Had a possum in your roof [yes]
95. Visited the outback [yes]
96. Travelled over corrugated roads [yes, too many times]
97. Hit a kangaroo while driving [no, thank God]
98. Been well outside any mobile phone coverage [yes — a few years back you only had to be 10 mins out of Albany and you had no coverage… And we lose coverage about 5 kms out of town here]
99. Seen an emu [many]
100. Have woken to the smell of bushfires [yes, unfortunately]
Kathy, on one of my tech writing lists, told us about this cool website: http://www.jacksonpollock.org/
You open the page, and it’s blank. So you click (left mouse) and a splotch of colour appears. Now keep clicking and dragging and you too can be Jackson Pollock! Each time you click the colour changes.
Here’s my first attempt—”Blue Poles” it’s not…
It's not Blue Poles...
Thanks for the link, Kathy!
The local family of magpies is growing up, and the parents have decided that humans are a good source of food. So a couple of weeks ago, a couple started coming on to the back veranda and just standing near the back door looking plaintively at us. Silly me — I found something to feed them, and now they come back pretty much every day. I should get a standing order for mince (ground beef) with the butcher! 😉 Some days there’s a just a few; other days we get the entire extended family — I think 12 is the largest number I’ve counted so far.
The reconnaissance magpie standing at the back door
Let's bring in some more troops
Hell, let's bring the whole family!
Four day weekends should be compulsory! Especially for your birthday. I had my birthday this past weekend and had a lovely time. Here are some of the highlights:
It was a lovely weekend — filled with friends, laughter, food and various non-strenuous and non-taxing activities, like shopping! We contributed more to the economy this weekend than for the past few weeks combined, so that’s gotta be good!
Back in September when I left a major project, Sarah P, one of my colleagues in the Brisbane-based company, said she was going to get a fish for her desk and call it Rhonda! A fish called Rhonda… get it? (guess you have to be a certain age where you remember the movie ‘A fish called Wanda’!)
Anyhow, she has FINALLY sent me a photo of Rhonda (who is a ‘he’ by the way, so some in the office call him ‘Ron’). Sarah reckons whenever anyone asks its name, she says ‘Rhonda’ and they say ‘Perth Rhonda?’ so I guess some of them still remember me. 😉 (and no, I have NO idea why there’s some space-suited figure with a ray gun hanging over the side of the fishbowl!)
A fish called Rhonda
Update, 2 June 2011: I just heard from Sarah P that Rhonda passed away last night. 😦 He will be buried in her backyard in Queensland, under the poinsiana tree, next to the guinea pig, so he’ll be doing a little bit towards improving the environment.
Last night we were driving back from Balingup and low in the crystal clear western sky was a terrific sight—a sliver of a moon topped by Jupiter and Venus. Tonight’s meant to be even better as the planets and the moon line up into a ‘smiley face’—at least in Western Australia. Even nicer is that Sagittarius (my star sign) and Capricorn (my Mum’s) are in the picture.
Planets and moon in a smiley face configuration
More information:
Update 9:00pm: I took a photo at 8:30pm. My (old) digital camera doesn’t have a way to stop or minimise camera shake, so there’s a little bit of shake in the photo, even though I steadied my arm against a back veranda post. Here’s my photo:
My photo of the smiley face
We’ve been having some really unusual weather the past week or so. Here, it’s rained heavily—we’ve had twice our annual rainfall for November and most has fallen in the past week. Huge drops, and big heavy gushing downpours. Good for the dams as we come into summer… not so good for the farmers who are in the middle of the grain harvest right now.
Yesterday, over near Salmon Gums, they got massive hail and ice and it flattened the crops. Now to put this into perspective, it’s late November here. It’s getting hot (usually). Salmon Gums’ average maximum temperature from 1932 to 2008 throughout November is 26C (about 75F), and their average minimum is around 10C (http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_012071.shtml)
So, here’s what happened near Salmon Gums yesterday (photos courtesy of my friend Bobbie’s chiropractor!):
Highway, Coolgardie to Esperance, 26 Nov 2008
Highway, Coolgardie to Esperance, 26 Nov 2008
So we opened the gate...
I guess if you don't laugh, you'd cry — drought, now this...
Hailstones the size of small eggs
For some amazing Amazon deals, check out Amazon’s Black Friday Sale—it’s only on for a VERY short time (Friday 28 November 2008 in the US)
Our friends, Bron and Lee, were down last weekend. They arrived late Thursday afternoon, but as it’s daylight saving time now, we were able to sit out on the back verandah in the spring sunshine, enjoying a bottle of white wine and cheese in the quiet of the early evening, watching the blue wrens, and talking and laughing — a lot!
Dinner was at the Bridgetown Hotel on Thursday night, and the rack of lamb I had was cooked to perfection! My husband said his steak was also perfect. The girls had creamy coconut garlic prawns and rice, and said they’d have preferred more garlic but understood that general restaurants can’t cater for particularly strong tastes (which is why I rarely eat a curry anywhere except a Thai, Malay or Indian restaurant).
Bron, Lee and I headed out late Friday morning — it was going to be a girly day out, so my husband declined the invitation to join us… (I wonder why?!) It took us 4 hours just to get to Balingup, which is typically only a 15-20 minute drive away, so you can see we had lots of stops on the way. First stop was to show them the estate where we have our land. That involved some driving then walking over our acre, then stopping at Lynda’s to meet her alpacas, then at Bobbie’s. Next, we drove the 14% grade road (roller coaster in a car!), and then did the Peninsula Rd drive. When we finally got to Balingup, we wandered through some of the little shops (Tinderbox herb shop, Alpaca wool shop, stone and crystal shop, etc.) , then had a lovely lunch at the Balingup Bronze Gallery (all organic foods). Last stop before leaving Balingup was the Old Cheese Factory, which is a HUGE arts and crafts store with lots of local arts and crafts for sale.
We meandered along the Balingup to Nannup road, one of the most picturesque drives in this huge state of ours, stopping at a cheese factory (real cheese this time!) and just enjoying the gorgeous spring day and each other’s company. A funny highlight was surprising a tractor driver having a leak in the field — he thought we’d gone past, but we’d actually turned around to check out the beautiful grounds where he was. As we drove back, he got the biggest fright! Gales of laughter from us, and no doubt a soaked foot or leg for him!
From Nannup it was back home on the other part of that loop along the Blackwood River, the Brockman Highway. We stopped at Karri Gully and walked the trail to the Bibbulmum Track, then back along the highway to the car park at the forest conservation area.
I made dinner on Friday evening as I knew we’d be eating well and often on Saturday. We taught the girls “Jokers and Marbles”, and between the four of us we knocked off two bottles of wine and a bottle of Knight’s 37% alcohol ‘Regal Knight’ (lemoncello). Bron was not a well girl when they left (I drove them back to the hotel after 1:00am — I’d only had about 3 glasses of wine all evening, promise!).
After a good night’s sleep and a big cooked breakfast at the hotel, the girls got here close to noon on Saturday. They were both in good spirits, but Bron wasn’t having any more alcohol for the day! First stop on Saturday was the Wine and Truffle Company at Manjimup. I only tasted one wine (nice); neither Bron nor Lee wanted to taste wines… I was disappointed that there was no way to taste truffles without either eating in their restaurant for lunch or buying some of their (expensive) truffle products. Maybe you can get a taste when truffles are in season (July). As someone who has never tried truffles, I didn’t want to spend money on something I may not like. I would have thought they’d have had some truffle oil to taste with small snippets of crusty bread — tempt me into buying!
By this stage we were hungry, so it was on to Pemberton to have a nice lunch at Jarrah Jack’s boutique brewery. Lee and my husband shared a tasting rack of beers, while Bron and I stuck to water. Lunch for me an Lee was a delicious steak sandwich each; Bron just had the pumpkin soup and hunk of crusty bread; my husband also had the soup as well as a beef and stout pie. After Jarrah Jack’s we went on the Karri Explorer Drive around Big Brook Dam (we missed the turn off to the beach!), and in through the Big Brook Arboretum. We came out on Channybearup Rd near some of the avocado farms, then headed to Knights Winery and Distillery for Bron and Lee to purchase some more Regal Knight lemoncello… including a replacement bottle for us!
We had a leisurely drive back to town, then had dinner at the pub that night. I had the squid and it was the worst meal I’ve ever had there. The squid was rubbery, massed in this huge grey pile, and it tasted pretty awful. The accompaniment was a red cabbage slaw thing with a wasabi mayo. An interesting and pretty horrid combination of flavours to my palate — I won’t have it again. My husband had the steak again (‘When you’re on a good thing, stick to it’, is his motto!), Lee had the rack of lamb, and I can’t recall what Bron had… We shared one bottle of wine, but really, none of us felt like much alcohol at all. After dinner we said our goodbyes as they were heading back to Perth first thing Sunday morning.
Thanks Bronny and Lee for a lovely weekend — we haven’t laughed so loud and so often in a long time! And my voice was hoarse from all that talking. It’s nice to know that ten years on from when we all worked together (yes, it was 1998/1999!) the bonds of friendship are still as strong as ever.
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 